I am making a sort of visual novel for my entry and I would like to keep the scope within reason for judges to be able to play through to the end, is there a word count limit or target completion time limit to get through the game?
I don't think so, but I'd aim for something short-ish -- like if you make a VN too long word count wise it might take longer to program? Idk i'm not a programmer, but I'd aim for like an hour playtime if it's your 1st jam. Honestly maybe 45min if you're doing a solo development vs a team dev? They have resources linked on the main page that helped me a lot :0
Coming from my experience of working in two past game jams, keep within your scope. Both visual novels I have submitted to past jams I kept around 20-30 minutes, if you keep them short you can focus on refining the writing and focus on other aspects like sound, backgrounds, art, etc. etc.
